March 8, 2016 (beta)

Contents

Patch Features

This patch includes a full wipe of players’ Career Profiles. As a result, the Career Profile page will appear empty when you first log in after patching, and your previous "Personal Best" records will be reset. (Note: This wipe will not affect matchmaking, player levels, progression, or rewards.)

Miscellaneous

Mercy has been recast for the English version of the game. When casting for Overwatch, we often try to find actors who are fluent in the character’s native language. In the case of Mercy, we were able to find an actress that both captured the essence of the character and was able to speak German, which you will be able to hear in this version.

Hero Balance Changes

Developer comments: After last patch’s improvements to RIP-Tire, the speed at which Junkrat could activate his Ultimate was too frequent in comparison. Since RIP-Tire now has a much higher impact, we’ve adjusted the cost of his Ultimate to reflect that.

Developer comments: We’ve been listening to feedback from all sources and decided to try some alternate changes to Lúcio, taking a different approach from the last patch. The goal here is to let Lúcio to be a difficult support to kill, but reduce his combat effectiveness and make him less of a good duelist. We also felt Lúcio could also activate his Sound Barrier too frequently considering its impact, so the cost of his Ultimate has been adjusted as a result.

Developer comments: In an ideal world, Mei is selected for her control and resilience, rather than her damage output. That said, we felt that there was still room to give her more consistent damage without compromising these goals. These changes are pretty significant, so we’ll be watching their impact closely.

Developer comments: Zenyatta’s “orb stacking” could cause some degenerate situations—such as a player becoming nearly un-killable if he or she had several Orbs of Harmony buffs active at the same time. Also, much like Lúcio, we felt like Zenyatta could activate Transcendence too frequently considering its impact on a game, so his Ultimate cost has been scaled up to accommodate.

Bug Fixes

Spectating

The “On Fire” mechanic while viewed through the Spectator Mode UI should scale down appropriately with the size of hero portraits